As most of you will no doubt have seen, Centrica, which owns Britain’s biggest gas and electricity company, this week announced profits of £1.3 billion for the past six months, including £270 million for British Gas. Great for them...and for us as customers too – or so I thought. In the same news they confirmed the company is going ahead with a 12 per cent rise in payouts to shareholders, despite the price rise for its energy customers which looks set to add about £190 to the cost of customers’ average annual bills, which will now be £1,286. Urggh!

And this is all against a back drop of British Gas being fined £2.5 million on Wednesday for failing customers who complained about its service. The £2.5 million fine is the largest by Ofgem for customer service issues.

Now I might be naive here but isn’t it time the energy industry started shaping up its customer service process and using more of its profits to help their customers – the people who pay their bills?

Now I can’t claim to be an expert on the energy sector but for an industry which has such a poor record for providing good customer service don’t we need to be pushing the industry to use every tool available to improve this situation for consumers, particularly given the burden that the increasing cost of energy is placing on people’s budgets?

In fairness, there is some sign that the energy companies are improving their customer service. The number of complaint forms submitted by customers was down 9 per cent last year. However, it’s not at all clear which companies have cleaned up their acts and which are lagging behind.

Half the ‘Big Six’ – Scottish Power, British Gas and Scottish & Southern – have now raised prices, while the other half – Npower, EDF and E.ON – are shortly expected to follow suit. When there’s so little to choose between them on tariffs, isn’t it time we had more visibility on customer service and complaints? It would be a small step towards more competition in the market, but a very welcome one...and one that could spell the difference between an average company and a market leader.

By Elena Davidson, Client Services Director